


and i’ll tell you how to run through the rain

by statusquo_ergo



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27495733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Do you have to be so strong all the time?
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	and i’ll tell you how to run through the rain

He knows he’s awake when he realizes that he can hear the silence. The whistling wind, the soft coo of a bilby owl. The gravelly scraping of some insomniac artist chipping away at his latest masterpiece by candlelight.

Pulling the blankets up over his shoulder, he reaches out for the other side of the bed, his hand creeping blindly until it reaches a piece of paper laid gently on the pillows.

Dear Sokka.

He rolls onto his back and raises the letter over his face. It’ll say the same thing it always does, he knows; don’t worry, darling, everything is all right. Don’t worry, darling, please go back to sleep. Don’t come looking for me, darling, I’ll be here when you wake.

Don’t worry. No, of course I won’t.

The letter slips from his fingers as Sokka’s arms drop to his sides.

So I told a lie once, and I’ll tell it again. It follows me, it’ll follow me for the rest of my life. Believe me when I say: Everything is all right.

A scratching sound echoes in the dim, a door opening not quite quietly enough, or a lock flipping shut. Maybe Zuko’s come back, wherever it is he went this time. He didn’t mean to wake Sokka; no, don’t worry. You didn’t. I was already up.

Sokka opens his eyes, blinking into the darkness at the amorphous shadows of the furniture, the outline of the door, every color reduced to some grim shade of grey. The door is closed still; what was that he heard, then? Ghosts in the palace walls, maybe. The spirits come to take him away.

No. Not tonight.

The window closing, that was all.

Sokka turns over onto his stomach and looks up at the dark figure silhouetted there, the one he didn’t think to look for from the start, the one maybe he should have. Maybe Zuko never left at all, maybe he’s been standing there all along, staring out at the courtyard with his forehead pressed to the latticework as dust swirls in the moonlight shining down on his hair. Sokka looks for the knife that’s in his hand sometimes, in moments like this, the companion to the prickle at the back of his neck that might not mean anything, that probably doesn’t, but those kinds of habits are hard to break, even after all this time.

Talking about the past and the present like they’re the same thing. Inextricable, as though they haven’t spent so long fighting to break free.

Should he say something? Does Zuko know he’s awake? Is he waiting for him to speak, is he hoping he will? Is he hoping he won’t?

Zuko lifts his head just enough to drop it back against the window, the light and shadows quivering as the glass rattles in its iron frame.

The silence is a kindness, in times like these. A small gift he can give, a little bit of solace. Sokka rests his chin atop his pillow and hugs it tight against his chest.

Set your roots down deep into the earth, but make sure time hasn’t stopped while you’ve been standing there.

Moving the pillow aside, he sets his feet on the floor and his hands on the edge of the bed. Zuko hears him—he does, he must—but he doesn’t say a word, doesn’t turn around to look. Sokka stands and takes a step closer.

“You want to talk about it?”

Zuko smiles, the barest hint at the corner of his mouth, and shakes his head against the glass.

“Do you ever miss it?” he asks after a moment.

Sokka takes another step, closer still, and holds his hands stiff at his sides.

“Living up in the stratosphere, flying around the world on the back of a giant fluffy monster?” He smiles too, a little bit, even though the deep furrow between his narrowed eyes must give him away. “Always having to remind myself to be suspicious of everyone I met, just in case they’re going to report me to the authorities? Well,” he sets his hands on his hips, “maybe that part hasn’t changed so much, but that’s what I get for going into politics.”

Zuko smiles some more and shakes his head again, pressing closer to the ironwork that must surely be digging into his skin, into the bone by now.

Sokka stands behind him, beside him, and sets his hand on his shoulder.

“What do you miss?”

Zuko opens his eyes and stares out at the empty courtyard, at whatever’s out there, hiding, waiting.

“Knowing.”

Everything in the world, and nothing at all. The future is a secret from everybody, don’t you know that?

Sokka slides his arm over Zuko’s shoulders and lays his palm against his chest.

“We’re all making it up as we go.”

Humming softly, Zuko raises his head away from the window and closes his eyes.

I remember that part of it, too. I do. I remember what it was like to know where we were going, and what we had to do when we got there. Our lives were simpler back then, before, but that was always just the start of something bigger.

Sokka settles his chin at the crook of Zuko’s neck and sighs.

“You’re doing the best you can.”

Zuko nods, his eyes going soft in their fractured reflection.

“It’s not enough, is it?”

“It will be eventually, if you keep trying.”

Raising his hand, Zuko closes his fingers around Sokka’s and presses their joined hands to his breast, just a bit to the side of his heart.

We’re on the right path, finally. We’re going the right way. It branches every now and again, but we’re walking in the right direction. We always find our way back after we stray.

“You know what the worst part is?”

Sokka turns his face so that his nose presses against the back of Zuko’s ear, thick hair tickling and scratching at his skin.

“Hm?”

Zuko runs his thumb across the back of Sokka’s knuckles.

“I’m worried that everyone will forget.”

All the things we’ve done, the lives we’ve changed. The ways we’ve made it better, the towers we’ve built and the mountains we’ve split. Everything we tried to create out of the shards we found scattered across the road, the ruins of what we left behind.

All the years we’ve given over to these forces outside of ourselves, the choices we made and the ones we didn’t. If you could go back and do it all again, wouldn’t you?

And then where would we be?

“They won’t.” Sokka nudges his face forward, angling his head to look at their reflections in the windowpanes. “Everyone knows how hard you’re working.”

“No.” Zuko leans away to look him in the eye, still holding his hand tight. “No, they’ll forget everything that happened. It’ll turn into—words, and stories, and theories for people to argue about, and it’ll become something it wasn’t, and people will forget not to repeat their mistakes, and everything we did, everything everyone else did, everything that happened will all have been for nothing.”

We write the stories we want to read, and we remember things the way we wish they had been. So much better, so much worse than the truth; we make ourselves into victims and martyrs and decide that we had no other choice.

That’s how I remember it, so that’s how it’ll be.

Sokka lowers his gaze to the floor underneath their feet.

“Of course it will.” He smiles a narrow smile. “That’s what always happens. Human nature.”

Zuko sighs and drops his hand, and Sokka reaches up to wrap his other arm around Zuko’s chest and hold on tight.

“But we’ll keep telling the truth to as many people as we can. We’ll write it down, and we’ll save it, and we’ll make sure it’s out there.”

“And then politics will get involved, and the bureaucracy will confiscate the past.”

Sokka smiles as he rests their heads back together.

“And then you’ll fire them all and we can get on with our lives.”

Zuko hums softly.

“Better to shout for change and bring on my own demise,” he says thoughtfully, “than to sit idle and die a slow and quiet death.”

“Hey!” Sokka releases his grip to smack him on the chest, setting his hands on Zuko’s shoulders and turning him to face him properly. “Does everything have to be about death and honor with you? I can’t catch a break for five minutes?”

“You knew what you were getting into.” Zuko grins, idly cradling Sokka’s face in his hand. “Thank you for staying.”

Sokka smiles, sliding his arms around Zuko’s waist and stepping closer.

“Of course I did.” Leaning in, he presses a kiss to Zuko’s lips, quick and unbothered, and tilts his head away from the window. “Let’s go back to bed, we have a ton of meetings tomorrow.”

Zuko allows himself to be pulled along with an indulgent smile. “We do?”

“Don’t we?” Sokka sits heavily, guiding Zuko down along with him as he lies back against the silken sheets. “I just naturally assumed.”

Leaning in, Zuko brushes his nose against Sokka’s. “You’re probably right.” Rolling off to the side, he fits his hand under Sokka’s shoulder, more for the skin to skin contact than the beginning of anything fervent.

“Thank you.”

Sokka smiles, nestling into the blankets and reaching up to run his thumb along the underside of Zuko’s wrist. They’re getting by okay, when everything is said and done.

“Sleep well.”

Zuko smiles back, his good eye creasing up around the corner, his scarred flesh pressed into his pillow. Darkness covers everything, all their sins and all their insecurities. All their fears and all their hate.

It’s only once Zuko closes his eyes that Sokka allows himself to stop smiling. Every day, the act gets a little more absurd; every day, it gets a little less convincing.

Every day, they put it on anyway.

Zuko puts on his brave face, he makes himself into a symbol of strength, and peace, and compromise, and he steps out on the world stage and he acts, and he acts, and he acts. Because symbols are untouchable, symbols last forever, symbols endure long after their creators are dead and gone, and Zuko is doing his best to make sure his message lives on long after he’s disappeared from people’s memories, long after he’s become a storybook character and a historical figure, a hero and a villain all mixed into one.

That’s a hard act to shake off, at the end of the day. Sokka knows it is. He doesn’t hate Zuko for it; how could he? They all have their secrets, they all keep parts of themselves hidden away. It can’t come as a surprise; it doesn’t, it isn’t. They’re all doing the best they can to protect the ones they love; how could Sokka ever hate him for that?

If, just for one moment, you could be as weak as I am, that’s all that I mean.

Sokka turns his head and looks up at the ceiling. He’s not weak. Not really. Not even when he feels it deep in his bones, that he’ll snap after one more wrong move, that he’ll collapse under one more missed connection or failed treaty or obstinate dignitary’s withering stare. The weakness is in the forfeit, the weakness is in giving up, and he’ll never do that. Not even when he wants to, not even when things are hard. None of them will, not even when everyone else says they should.

Would it be so bad, though? To break for just a moment?

The love would still remain.

He threads their fingers together, and Zuko tightens his grip. Is he sleeping? Maybe, maybe not; Sokka hopes he is. He deserves to rest.

He deserves his peace where he can find it.

The next time Sokka wakes in the middle of the night to a note on his pillow, to a silhouette at the window or a creaking door open just a crack, he’ll close his eyes and he’ll give Zuko the silence. Morning will come along soon enough, and he’ll be there when it does, but in the meantime, in the darkness of the night, he’ll give Zuko his time, and he’ll try to understand the subtle difference between helping and hurting. Time will keep on running forward in a straight line, as it always does, and they’ll put down their markers along the way and hope they’ve planted them deep enough to stand, tall enough to be seen from very far away.

If they circle back around every once in a while, or they take a moment to stand perfectly still, to disappear from the world, maybe history will be kind in its recollection. Maybe the world will understand.

It won’t, though. He knows it won’t.

But only for a moment.

I’ll love you just the same.


End file.
